Monday, September 11, 2017

Movie Quality


No, this isn't a post about Charlton Heston or Ben-Hur or even Cecil B. de Mille. It is about being ready for his closeup to borrow a line from Sunset Strip and Gloria Swanson when she, as Norma Desmond, wild-eyed and dressed for her closeup, she asked de Mille if it was time for her to step to her spot camera ready and begin her scene.

This time, de Mille is dead, as is Charlton Heston, and Lew Wallace's 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A tale of the Christ, is once again at the heart of the above photo. The actor whose face you cannot see is Claude Heater who portrayed Jesus in William Wyler's version of Ben Hur, which was the second remake of deMille's movie based on Lew Wallace's book and starring Charlton Heston as Judah ben Hur. The point of all of this back story is the real star of the show who was created whole cloth 2000 years ago as a fictionalized character based on the many Jewish rabbis speaking out against the Roman occupation of Israel, then called Palestine. This character in the longest running propaganda scam, this Jesus ben Joseph, also known as Yeshua ben Yoseph, and star of the annual Christmas tradition, was never a person and no one will ever find his tomb or his home or anyone who knew him because he never existed, except in the minds of the Hebrew scholars and friends of the Flavians concocting this fiction to foment peace for the Romans and to force the Hebrew using their own devices and literary tricks against them. Part of the scam was to direct the monotheistic Hebrews to do what they would never do voluntarily -- it was against the dictates of their religion -- worship the son of man -- in this case, Titus Flavius, Roman Emperor who was elevated to godhood under the Roman Imperial Cult alongside all the caesars since Julius, likely due to his relationship with Cleopatra Queen of Egypt where all the pharaohs were born gods. The Egyptian people were long accustomed to worship of their rulers, but not so the Romans and definitely not the monotheistic and militant Hebrews still fighting for autonomy and rule over their own land, their own people, and their own beliefs.

The Romans would accept a statue of the current caesar in a temple where he would be worshiped without a second thought and would sacrifice and pray to the god/caesar as they prayed to the gods of their choice to intercede on their behalf and in their favor. The Romans were polytheistic and adopted the gods of whatever people they conquered and subjugated, making room for them all, as they would have done for the Hebrews had they any statues or representations of their invisible god. That was not possible as anyone in recent memory who has seen The Ten Commandments, also directed by Cecil B. deMille several times, and with Charlton Heston portraying Moses in the penultimate version as the Hebrew Moses cast onto the waters of the Nile in a basket by his mother, Naomi, when pharaoh decreed that all newborn male infants were to be massacred. Naomi was lucky in that the pharaoh's sister found the basket and the child, drew it from the water, named him Moses because she drew him from the water, and made him her son, ordering her nurse never to tell anyone of Moses's true origins. She raised him as her son beside her brother's son where Moses was educated and surpassed his cousin at every turn until the nurse told Ramses that Moses was a Hebrew, a slave, who was saved from pharaoh's edict and raised as a member of the royal family. Moses story from here is known by all, not only because they have seen the movie, The Ten Commandments, but also in Sunday school if they were raised Christian and by the world because Moses has become as legendary as Jesus.

It is no accident nor is it providence that some elements of the story of Moses are the same as the story of Jesus. It was written that way using a device known as typology wherein certain elements of stories with the history of the Hebrew people are used to create a bond, a sort of resonance, between people within the history. The story of Jesus and his birth resonate with the story of Moses beginning with the massacre of the innocents at birth. Moses was chosen by the invisible god to lead the people out of bondage just as Jesus was chosen by the invisible god to lead the Hebrews to ultimate salvation and peace by following the his example of rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's. The entire New Testament, including the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, using the literary examples of the Hebrews to mirror their own literary tricks to fulfill what they already believed and waited for -- a military messiah to conquer Rome and end their subjugation to the Romans -- was created by the Flavians to fulfill that purpose. With what we know from our modern experiences, the propaganda has worked for two millennia, gathering believers and giving Titus Caesar what he was determined to have -- the people worshiping him as God, the son of a God (Vespasian Caesar), the son of man, the son leading all worshipers for two thousand years to a heaven envisioned by Titus and created by his own followers, among them Flavius Josephus the adopted son of Vespasian, head of the Flavian family, and a Hebrew historian, a chronicler of the times. All it took was Constantine Augustus (Constantine the Great) emperor of Rome who famously claimed to see a burning cross in the sky and determining that Rome would conquer by the cross; Christians would be the way to further Rome's territory and spread. Since the Flavians had already given the nod to Christians, the followers of Jesus's teachings, the cross was indeed the way to spread the Roman empire throughout the world. It was during the Council of Nicaea when he gathered the extant Christian writings into what is now known as the Bible, Old and New Testaments, codifying the holy book of the Christian religion and making it legal in Rome's eyes and in the eyes of the world. Constantine also ended the persecution of Christians and gave them the Roman stamp of approval as pontifex maximus. Christianity became the state religion and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church was modeled on the Roman model.

One could say that the Rome never fell as it is described in the histories of that time, that it morphed into the Roman Catholic Church, a religion and an empire that continues to exist to this day. That is a very long time to reign over the hearts and minds of mankind, especially since the literary fiction of Jesus Christ continues to reign over all who would believe.

It is Constantine's mother, Helena, who journeyed through Syria and Palestine and pointed out all the places where Jesus preached and lived and was born. The long awaited second coming has already come and gone just as Jesus prophesied when Titus razed the Temple in Jerusalem and looted all within the temple, taking it back to Rome and placing it all on display. It doesn't take much imagination to realize that all of those artifacts (booty) are hidden in the underground vaults beneath the Vatican. The only writings that survive from the time of the Flavians, outside of their own propaganda, are contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls that have since been translated and circulated since their discovery. It is interesting to note that the scrolls are full of hatred of the Romans and nothing about the fulfillment of prophecy with Jesus's coming. There is nothing about Jesus's crucifixion or his death and resurrection just as no one mentions that in the early Roman churches in the basement was an altar for the worship of Mithras, the god who was born of a virgin in midwinter, and whose religion was the basis for Christianity, a religion Constantine celebrated and of which he was an initiate until his death. It may be because he was a believer of Mithras until his deathbed that the "11th hour conversion" was allowed by believers.

The average Christian knows none of this, although much of this is available through Joseph Atwill's book, Caesar's Messiah, the proof and the book that Atwill sat on for some time before allowing it to be published.  I still haven't finished the book as I began reading it yesterday, but I have watched Atwill's interviews and the documentary based on his findings. I spent most of the night writing much of this in my head instead of sleeping, although, except for the Flavian elements, much of this I have known from my own research and belief that all man-made religions are false and do not demonstrate anything about the actual Cosmic Creator of All. All man-made religions are created by men, perpetuated by men, and supported by women even though women have been most harmed and marginalized by these man-made beliefs since the first man decided that the goddess needed to be put in her place and a man placed in full charge. No matter what is said about God being a woman, God is now and has always been male and, until recent memory in historical times, HE ruled without a female consort.

As an atheist who believes finally in the Cosmic Creator of All (the ONE) who defies description and cannot be fashioned into an idol of stone, plaster, or any material. The ONE is beyond our understanding and does not set down laws and lists of dos and don'ts for us to follow. The ONE does not count sins and does not send us to Heaven or Paradise, Purgatory, or Hell, all of which are Roman creations and fed to us to fill their coffers with treasure. The ONE has no need of such things and I still believe what I heard and have oft repeated as a Minbari belief that we humanoid beings are extensions of the Universe (the ONE) trying to figure itself out. We are the cosmic probes sent into the void to experience all that is possible and send the data back to the ONE. The rest is a man-made understanding based on limited understanding of our role in this symbiotic exchange and religion, which I once thought was declared sacred to protect knowledge, is a tool wielded by those in power to manage those not in power in order to amass treasure and control and has nothing to do with Divine Knowledge imparted to us puny humans.

Until we die and merge once again with the ONE, we do not understand anything, much like Jon Snow to whom Ygritte said, "You know nothing, Jon Snow," because we know nothing. Like all probes, we gather knowledge and experience and take it back to our creator to download all we have learned where it will be collected, collated, and held. If we would wish to know more, we must learn more and that is best done by increasing our knowledge through experience and research (reading) and by not getting caught up in the politics and religions that abound.

In the end, Jesus Christ (meaning savior messiah) never existed as a man. He was not born in a stable nor was he visited by three wise men from the east (read the books and information on Orion's belt, Mithras, sun gods, Flavian emperors, Hebrew typology, and Flavius Josephus for starters) and given gold, frankincense, and myrrh nor did he grow up to be a carpenter or preach to the Jewish masses with the beatitudes as his text, feed the thousands with three loaves of bread and a fish, raise Lazarus from the dead, consort with Mary Magdalene, have twelve disciples, one of whom betrayed him to the Roman soldiers, was tried by the pharisees or the sadducees, had Pilate wash his hands of proclaiming sentence so the Jews had to condemn him to be crucified on a cross, laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, rose from the dead after three days,had his disciple Thomas doubt his existence, strike Paul blind on the road to Damascus, or call Peter the rock upon which his church would be be built and become the first pontifex maximus from which all popes have descended to become supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church for which so many have died and fought for and gone on crusades all in the name of the son of god. It is all a literary fiction, a propaganda tool the Flavians used against the Jews in the name of Rome, a satire of Jewish beliefs, in order to master the Jews at last.or call Peter the rock upon which his church would be be built and become the first pontifex maximus from which all popes have descended to become supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church for which so many have died and fought for and gone on crusades all in the name of the son of god. It is all a literary fiction, a propaganda tool the Flavians used against the Jews in the name of Rome, a satire of Jewish beliefs, in order to master the Jews at last.or call Peter the rock upon which his church would be be built and become the first pontifex maximus from which all popes have descended to become supreme leader of the Roman Catholic Church for which so many have died and fought for and gone on crusades all in the name of the son of god. It is all a literary fiction, a propaganda tool the Flavians used against the Jews in the name of Rome, a satire of Jewish beliefs, in order to master the Jews at last.

The demonization of the Jews is as groundless as the fiction of Jesus and the embodiment of all he stood for and died for because none of it was ever real. There was never a black Jesus because there never was a Jesus of any race or color. His virgin mother never existed just as Mithras's virgin mother never existed except in mythos of his origins. The northerners who found the resemblance of Jesus to Odin were rightfully confused because Odin and Jesus were born of the same human imagination, just from imaginations of people living in different climates and times but eating from the communal trough. All the wars that have been fought, all the people martyred, all the treasure looted and hidden are all part and parcel of mankind's nature ascribed to some omnipotent deity that exists only in the mind and as substantial as the lost city of Cecil B. deMille built to provide background for the movies he would make based on stories that enchanted and entertained him and millions of others on the screen. A movie made for us by us and lasting as long as there are those to remember. Jesus has provided more dreamers and writers more material for two thousand years and will likely do so as long as there are people who refuse to grow up and walk out of the play yard to become masters of their own lives and destinies from now until they die and return back to the ONE enlightened or clueless until the penny drops and they merge with their creator and download their data.deMille built to provide background for the movies he would make based on stories that enchanted and entertained him and millions of others on the screen. A movie made for us by us and lasting as long as there are those to remember. Jesus has provided more dreamers and writers more material for two thousand years and will likely do so as long as there are people who refuse to grow up and walk out of the play yard to become masters of their own lives and destinies from now until they die and return back to the ONE enlightened or clueless until the penny drops and they merge with their creator and download their data.deMille built to provide background for the movies he would make based on stories that enchanted and entertained him and millions of others on the screen. A movie made for us by us and lasting as long as there are those to remember. Jesus has provided more dreamers and writers more material for two thousand years and will likely do so as long as there are people who refuse to grow up and walk out of the play yard to become masters of their own lives and destinies from now until they die and return back to the ONE enlightened or clueless until the penny drops and they merge with their creator and download their data.Jesus has provided more dreamers and writers more material for two thousand years and will likely do so as long as there are people who refuse to grow up and walk out of the play yard to become masters of their own lives and destinies from now until they die and return back to the ONE enlightened or clueless until the penny drops and they merge with their creator and download their data.Jesus has provided more dreamers and writers more material for two thousand years and will likely do so as long as there are people who refuse to grow up and walk out of the play yard to become masters of their own lives and destinies from now until they die and return back to the ONE enlightened or clueless until the penny drops and they merge with their creator and download their data.

At least il puce de Ben-Hur didn't infect the villa where Heston and his family stayed since it was as fictitious as Jesus Christ's nativity and crucifixion, except in the Italian tabloids where all such fictions are give space and ink.

That is all. Disperse.